#nalo

“You Can’t Survive in Isolation”

We're told in a quick vision that Moana's people will die if they stay in isolation—but there's no showing us that.

In fact, what we've been shown is that they're thriving, they're fine by themselves. They were in the first movie. They are at the beginning of the second.

So we're not convinced that they need what the whole adventure is supposedly about. Compare that to the first movie! Totally doesn't measure up to the storytelling quality!

In the first movie, the whole first act sets up the idea of darkness reaching through the ocean from Tefiti's missing heart, killing everything. That’s especially bad for Moana’s people. We know that because we’re shown how Moana's people are so deeply connected to the ecosystem of their island, and how every part of it is needed for their way of life to continue—then were also shown that Moana has a deep, personal longing to leave the island. There’s a real connection to home and an urgent need to leave it, and that creates really good emotional tension.

So by the time we're shown (not told in one scene, or through snatches of overdone dialogue, but shown) how the darkness will destroy everything if she doesn't go, we really believe it. We have lots of reasons to empathize with and believe in Moana’s reason for going on this mission. We also feel for her having to make the big decision; we’ve been shown that she’s trying to live up to her responsibilities, and leaving the island would seem like a dismissal of those responsibilities, but we can also see how doing nothing and staying actually would be a dismissal. We feel that tension because they showed us several believable reasons to feel it.

But when Moana is singing “Beyond,” which is supposedly about her conflicting feelings about leaving, and the need to go? I’m just bored. Not emotionally invested. I just saw her going back-and-forth, leaving and coming back, leaving and coming back, one song ago, in “We’re Back.” And everything was fine during that song. Leaving-And-Coming-Back is the dream she’s been living as a voyager. So why is she suddenly convinced it’s a hard decision to…leave-and-plan-to-come-back?

“Because the last voyager died doing this mission she’s about to go on! She might die too!” Okay but all you did was tell me that. You didn’t show me Moana nearly-dying (like she did the first time she tried to cross the reef, or the first time she tried to tackle Te Ka on her own) and then realizing, “gee, oh no, I could die this time,” and then having to make a renewed decision to go anyway. You didn’t put work in, so I don’t believe it.

But the emotion Moana is feeling about leaving is also undercut, like I said, because there doesn’t seem to be a need for her to leave. All they did was tell me that Motunui is in trouble if it stays isolated. But no proof. They were fine isolated from other islands in Moana 1. They have been fine up until now in Moana 2. One random vision of an empty pavilion for three seconds isn’t going to make me forget that and believe that continued isolation will do anything negative to them.

And another thing, what does “uniting with other islands” even mean?” Why would it be such a good thing?

Nobody mentions trade. Nobody mentions learning from one another, or demonstrates learning from one another. Honestly, having Kele teach Moana or Moni or the Kakamora, an actual other-islander, about farming would’ve been a great demonstration of “why we need to meet new people and get out more.”

Having Kele LEARN TO SWIM would have been a SLOW ONE DOWN THE MIDDLE.

But nooo. They just half-bake suggest the idea that the old man doesn’t like leaving his comfort zone, but then never let one of the others have a real conversation with him about why he needs to learn new things from new people. NEVER. It’s just “bouncy vague song, almost-jump-in-the-water-under-coercion BUT NEVER ACTUALLY DO IT, banter and one liners” for the rest of the movie! (And don’t tell me Kele “learning to speak Kakamora” was an example of him “getting out of his comfort zone.” No. Kele never demonstrated a lack of desire to meet and learn new things from strangers. He demonstrated a hatred of fun and the ocean. All the others could also understand the Kakamora literally whenever they needed to, so that wasn’t a special-character-arc for Kele.)

Even though, my point is, they could’ve easily had a character arc for Kele. And that would’ve had something to do with “learn new things from new people, or die stagnant and stuck in your ways,” look, see, a mini-object-lesson in one character’s journey about the theme of the movie. But noooo

They could’ve done the same type of “learn-something-new-or-die” with Moni. Have him be convinced that doing things the “traditional Motunui Wayfinding Way” on this, his first adventure, is the ONLY way to do things. But he’s not good at it, no matter how much head-knowledge he has. And then the Kakamora (or literally any non-Motunui-character) could’ve shown him a newly-developed style for him to learn and grow.

They could’ve done the same type of “learn-something-new-or-die” with Loto. But nope. She just has a really poorly-done, poorly-written, poorly-performed snippet of a song where she mentions how… “perfection is a myth, the journey is just failing, learning, then death, no destination, ever.” But that ridiculous, absolutely absurd worldview is not portrayed as something she’s wrong about or needs to grow out of. It’s portrayed as a good, quirky, revolutionary thing.

But that’s not the same thing as portraying the value I’m describing. Loto just sings about it and invents-and-reinvents canoes. She does not learn how to make canoes from outsiders. She doesn’t learn anything from anybody. She is portrayed as a solitary genius with her own ideas who’s never once shown to be wrong about anything in the whole movie, and everything she tries works. She never messes up or makes a mistake, for all her singing about it. So she never actually “falls on her face, then gets up and learns.” Even though learning from others would be the literal only way for her character to portray the idea of this vague theme they throw out there, “You Can’t Survive in Isolation.”

The point is: there is no reason, in-movie, SHOWN, for the audience to believe that Moana should “re-unite the islands.” There’s no believable demonstration of why that would be a good thing, and no believable demonstration of why not doing it would be a bad thing.

So then why do we care if she risks her life and Maui’s life to re-unite the islands? For a bunch of nameless nobody background characters to show up for a five-second afterparty on Motunui at the end? Ridiculous.

Moving on.

“There’s Always Another Way”

So BUMP ALL THAT, I GUESS.

Matangi, everybody’s Cherished Hope for a New Villain, sings a song and it’s about “get lost, there is no one way, there’s always a different way.”

Fine. Cool. Whatever. The whole point of the first movie was that there’s this symbolic, ancient, WAY of sailing and living your life bravely. And Moana doesn’t know what that One WAY is because her tribe had forgotten it, so she has to learn it. It’s cool, because you navigate by looking at where you’ve been, to see where you’re going. It’s the whole “remember who you are in order to face life’s challenges, not hide from them.” That’s “the Way.” But whatever. Dump that down the toilet, new movie. You know why? Because everybody’s obsessed with “There’s No One Truth,” and “There Is No Right and Wrong,” and “Let’s Experience Things Just to Experience Them, the Journey is the Destination Because We’re not Going Anywhere!” Blah blah blah ridiculous inane sewage slop.

BUT whatever, fine, IF you mean it in a “There’s Lot’s of Ways to Solve Most Problems, Try Try Again,” sense, that’s okay. That’s true for most problems (not all, but most, certainly there are more than one ways to sail.) Sure. that message, if that’s what they mean, is fine. That’s the sense in which Moana takes it, at least, when she dives down to touch the Core Island and break the curse instead of it rising.

But you know what? Yeah. They don’t flesh it out. They don’t take time to show that that’s what’s happening. Moana doesn’t try to teach her new crew how to sail, and they suck at it, but if she lets them do it their own way or whatever, then they work—and she learns there’s “more than one way.” That doesn’t happen.

The Kakamora that joins their team doesn’t solve all his problems with blow darts, or violence, or whatever—and then Moana, or the kindhearted Moni, or the peaceful Kele, tells him, “no, there’s another way, you don’t always have to do things your violent way.” That doesn’t happen.

Loto has one moment where she applies the way she was already living according-to, from the moment we meet her, not a NEW way, to the canoe so that the gang can out-sail magical waterspouts. And it works for like twenty seconds, is played like a great triumph, before they all get smashed into the ocean anyway.

Kele, again, would’ve been a great example of “learn to do things in a different way, or problem-solve by try-trying again.” Because he’s old and they set him up as hating life for no reason and not wanting to do new things. But they didn’t do anything with him.

And guess what else—at the end—when Moana has her own demigod powers, and her own magical-arm-tattoo ripped off from Tears of the Kingdom—guess what her magic power is?

To stick her oar in the water, and light up one current or “path” for the boat to take to a new destination.

A Path. ONE SINGULAR SOLITARY WAY.

Not “a new way.” Not “all possible ways.” Not “multiple ways.” Not even two ways. One. Even though the big lesson she sacrificed her life for, even though the one and only song Matangi got to sing, was about how “there’s always another way.”

WHILE they’re singing a reprise of, “We Know THE Way.”

It’s like being in a conversation with someone who starts a sentence and then forgets what they were saying halfway through, and winds up saying worse than nothing.

“Together, But a Little Different”

Like I said, if you told me that the Main Point of the movie (not one of many vague ideas, but the Main Point) was “Together, But a Little Different,” I immediately would’ve said:

“Oh, so it’s about having to adjust to long-distance relationships. Maybe even death.” Or, maybe, because I saw the trailers, I’d go, “Oh, so it’s about keeping what makes us unique, but uniting when we need to, in spite of our differences. ‘Together, But a Little Different.’”

No. It’s not about any of that. It’s just a phrase the Grandma’s Ghost says whenever she hugs Moana to remind her that she’s still “with her.” She’s still with her; she just glows and can shapeshift into a manta ray now! That has tons of application for real life. 🙄

It’s supposed to be her words of comfort to pass on to Moana, who can then pass it on to the people in her island, so they know that she won’t “ever really leave them.” But like. Then why should I care that she’s leaving them? Why should that be sad? If there’s no sacrifice in being apart, in leaving for the adventure, then the adventure keeps feeling low-stakes and boring and kind of pointless.

If you tilt your head and squint, it’s also maybe-applying to Moana’s pointless ugly annoying Little Sister character, Simea. Simea is in the movie so that someone can be immature for three seconds about how Moana’s always gone from home. And I do mean exactly three seconds, that’s all the emotional drama we get, and it’s not built up to either. She says, “Never come back? -sniff sniffle- I don’t want you to gooo!” And then runs away and then Moana takes a break from singing the next day to briefly explain to Simea about how she can pass messages through the ocean. Then she’s fine.

But the way this theme is thrown around, you think it would mean, “Moana Has to Go Away Sometimes, But if You Remember Her She Never Leaves You.”

But seriously. Again I say to you, who cares? We know Moana is coming back. We know that. Nobody in the audience seriously believes she’s never coming back when she leaves for this adventure. If we did, maybe we’d care that Simea cares. But we don’t.

Even when Moana “dies,” and it’s the perfect time to be like, “seeee, what we feeeared has happened, she’s dead, she can never go home to Simea!” THERE IS NO FOLLOW-THROUGH. There’s not even a cut to Simea back on Motonui, feeling through the ocean or the Force or whatever movie mumbo-jumbo that her sister is gone. And there is not even a deadline, in the movie, for Moana to accomplish this mission, so it’s not like she could be running late and we could get some scenes of Moana’s family mourning. Simea having to do something, take some big step, that show’s she’s willing to go on even if she can’t be with Moana anymore because she believed Moana about how she’s always with her—something like that.

My point is, Simea has no real point, so she doesn’t add to this “Together, But Different.” idea at all. And we already know that it doesn’t mean, “overcome our differences” from what I said in the first Theme.

But what they could have done? They COULD have gone whole-hog and MADE MOANA A BELIEVABLE DEMIGOD. Instead of a vague joke about tattoos that leaves the question open-ended, a pointless and theme-breaking display of shiny superpowers, and no other change to the status quo—

—they could’ve shown that there are consequences to that action—maybe she’s a Demigod of Navigation, or something like that, and the condition is, she can sail around connecting islands, but she can never stay on one too long. So she’ll never be able to live with Simea and her parents again on Motunui, but it’s the price she has to pay to connect the islands. Then she’d have to show Simea how they can still be “Together, Just a Little Different.”

Or someone could’ve gotten hurt or disabled, giving off the idea that even though everything is “different,” they can still be “together.”

Maui could’ve died and passed his fishhook powers, AND MINI MAUI, on to Moni or Moana. “Together, but different.”

Nothing, nothing at all like that happens. It’s just a pretty phrase that could’ve meant something, but any meaning it actually has hamstrings the whole emotional weight of the story instead of fueling it.

“Something-Something Stories Are Important”

The thing here is. I already said it. You can’t just say words and expect them to be impactful, in a story. You’re supposed to show what they mean and why they’re true, and THAT’S what creates an impact.

So when you’re talking about “stories” in a story, you definitely should not have nothing to say.

And I can feel it. I’ve seen none of the promotional material, I don’t watch the interviews, I haven’t checked BuzzFeed or ScreenRant or the Disney Youtube page in a while, but I can feel it.

I can feel them trying to say, “Something Something, ‘Storytelling’ is a big part of Pacific Islander Culture!” I can imagine the headlines. “[Actor or Disney Exec Name Here] Invites You to Celebrate Your Story with Pacific Islander Heritage Month!” They’re so into “culture as a marketing tool” these days.

But they say it so lazily. Just repeating the word “story” over and over in the movie doesn’t pay tribute to how important “stories” are to Pacific Islanders. Or to anybody.

You know what makes stories impactful? They point at truth, when the darkness and misunderstandings and evil of the world threaten to distract you or hide the truth. That’s what makes stories impactful. I’m sure Pacific Islanders use stories in that way—to pass on what they believe to be true, in a way that can be retold and remembered.

So MAKE THAT THE THEME OF YOUR MOVIE. Instead of just having Moana replace “Nalo wants to kill us” with “Nalo wants to end our story” for Empty Effect—instead of having Grandma say something about “your e

Okay okay.

Nalo is a silly, lazy villain. He is clearly a Thanos rip-off in design and introduction in a literal post-credits scene, and his most-present form, in the movie, is just a big ocean thunderstorm. But the laziest thing about him is that he’s the Conflict that everyone is trying to rise up and overcome, and the whole reason he sunk the Island was “He gets power from humans being divided.”

That’s never explained. It’s never shown at all why he gets power from the vague “humans are divided” thing. He has no scenes. He has no interactions with other characters (till the end-credits scene.) A range of his power, like “here’s what it looks like when the humans are divided—oh, now here’s how much less-powerful he is when they’re together!” is never shown. So. No consequences if the heroes fail, no change to the status-quo, villain-wise, when they win.

If Nalo wanted to end their stories, though, that would be another thing.

Stories are meant to be told. They’re for the benefit of others. So what they should’ve done is made the secret key of Nalo’s power hidden. Unknown. Nobody knows how to beat him. And he’s not sinking some unfindable island in another dimension. He’s just devouring the resources of the weather with his ever-more-powerful storms, (kind of like the darkness leaking through the ocean from the first movie) and nobody can stop him.

But that’s because each island, around Oceania, has clues to how to beat him. Clues in their stories. But they can only sail so far from what they know before his storms kill them. So he’s literally making them weaker by using his power to keep them apart, and making himself stronger by defending his weakness. Now they can’t Wayfind to each other, and learn one another’s cultural advancements or stories or beauties, because Nalo is powerful enough to make storms that rip their boats apart. But if they could learn from one another’s stories about the things their ancestors used against him, they could get rid of him.

That’s what they should’ve done. Shown why Nalo was a threat and how the Main Theme was the key to overcoming that threat.

They did not do that.

They made stories just a hot button word to be thrown around with no impact. In a story.

The point of this post is that Moana 2 had a lot of potentially-good points, and it made none of them, so it was totally unsatisfying. If it had just focused on one, the other little benefits they were trying to fit in could’ve been mentioned more naturally.

The way that Beauty & the Beast is all about ONE theme: “True Love is Self-Sacrificial.” But because of the tools it uses to tell that story—a beast that it would take a lot of self-sacrifice to be stuck with forever—you get little side-themes thrown in, supporting and draping decoratively over the ONE theme: “Beauty is Found Within, So Don’t Be Deceived By Appearances,” etc.

Moana 2 should’ve just picked the Story One, and it could’ve had that theme, and it’s cultural-nod cake, and it’s unifying-effect cake, and EATEN IT TOO.

"Oh, now you come back?" the crab had sneered.  It was meant to be threatening, but the intimidation factor was tempered by the dramatic pout Tamatoa was wearing.

And that was about all he was wearing.  All his glittering treasures were gone; his shell bare except for a few bits of flotsam and jetsam--fish bones and mossy rocks and other drab junk.  He was dirty , too.  Maui had never seen the crab so unkempt.  He looked like hell, huddled in the rubble of his lair with his claws crossed petulantly.

"Heeeey," Maui tried, slapping an endearing grin on his face.  "Better late than never.  Right, crabcake?"

Tamatoa shot him a murderous glare.

"You just left me stuck on my back ," he accused.  "I might have died! "

Maui's cheerful front faded and he scowled.  "I seem to remember you trying to eat me first."

Tamatoa sniffed, flicking his antennae with a haughtiness at odds with his bedraggled state.  "That never bothered you before ."

This was getting nowhere.

Maui tried a different tack.  "Look, I just want to talk."

"No," Tamatoa refuted him immediately.  "You want to talk about yourself ."

Maui opened his mouth to object, but the crab wasn't having it.

"Let me guess," Tamatoa continued, crooning with a voice like poisoned honey.  "You went and had another biiiig adventure.  Important demigod stuff ."

"Well, yeah, but--"

Tamatoa cut him off again.  "And you just couldn't wait to brag about it, too."

Maui snorted.  He hadn't only come to brag.  He also needed therapy.

"What?  None of your precious humans would listen anymore?  Tired of your little act already?  Got what they needed and then left you again?"

It was Maui's turn to glare now, but Tamatoa kept pushing.

"So you come running back here?  Tamatoa will listen to you!  Tamatoa will let you trauma dump on him!"

Maui grit his teeth.  "It's not--"

"Then you don't show up for a thousand years without a word.  Not even a note! "

"How would I even--"

"But Nalo tries to kill your little pet and now you want to come talk about your feelings?"

Maui felt like someone had yanked the ground out from under him.  His hook was brandished in front of him, glowing blue, before he even realized he had done it.

"How do you know that?" he demanded, snapping straight to fury.

But the crab was unfazed by his show of anger.  No, Tamatoa smiled .  His eyes narrowed to sly crescents and his lips pulled back from his teeth in a nasty grin.  He'd gotten Maui riled and was enjoying the power that gave him.

"A crab hears things," he said, playing coy even as his every smug feature said otherwise.  "And I heard that Nalo peeled you like a shrimp."

He gave Maui a once over, looking him up and down and taking in the updated state of his tattoos with a sneer.

"Though, I see your tattoos came back anyway."

Maui's initial anger had subsided enough to settle into suspicion.  "And just who told you all this?"

Only now did the crab decide to clam up, offering just a smug smirk in answer.

Maui growled, deep in his throat.

Tamatoa waved him off, cool as a sea cucumber.

"Well, you're here now, minigod ," Tamatoa said, casually dismissive and still ignoring the question.  "So hurry up and get whatever it is off your chest, then get out ."

Maui eyed the crab, but he knew from long experience that he wasn't going to get any answers out of Tamatoa when he was being stubborn like this.

And he really did want to get all this out, too.  That's why he had come all the way down here, after all.

"Fine," he said finally.  " Yes , I was doing demigod stuff .  I was on an important quest ."

Tamatoa rolled his eyes.  "Bo-ring!"

Maui shot him a glare, but continued anyway, "I was trying to reconnect all the humans," he explained.  "It's important! " he stressed, when Tamatoa failed to show proper appreciation for the gravity of his task.

"Blah blah blah," the crab mercilessly mocked.  "Waste of time if you ask me."

"Could you shut up? "

"Nope."

A vein was pulsing in Maui's forehead, but tried to ignore the crab and continue anyway.

"So, there was this sunken island," he tried again through gritted teeth.  "The island of Motu Fetu was a crossroads of sorts, positioned at the confluence of several major ocean currents--"

"Oh, a crossroads island that sank into the sea?  How original .  I wonder how they came up with that? " Tamatoa deadpanned.  "Did you get stuck there, too?"

"No, that was a different island, and--"

"Please.  Spare me the details.  I've heard it all already."

"Will you just let me talk?! "

"Why should I?" the crab snapped back, clicking a claw for emphasis.

Maui wasn't given a chance to answer before Tamatoa continued.

"Here, I'll tell it," the crab oozed.  "Matangi tied your cheeky ass up.  You had to be rescued by humans ."  He grinned, all teeth.  "How did that feel, huh?  The mighty Maui having to be rescued by a bunch of scraggly idiot humans.  Ones even dumber than your pet, even.  What a bring down for the 'Hero of Men'!"

Maui clenched his jaw.  He pointed his hook at the crab.  "Watch it, bottomfeeder," he warned.

"Then you tried to get to that island.  When you failed miserably , your precious little Moana had to step up to do your work for you.  How embarrassing!  Some demigod you are."

He flashed that snide grin again, not letting Maui get a word in edgewise.  "How am I doing so far?  Hitting the mark yet?"

Indignant, Maui tried to defend himself and the humans and everything else.  "You have no idea what--" 

But Tamatoa went for the throat anyway.  "And your incompetence got her killed."

That one hit Maui like a rogue wave.  He found himself struck dumb.

Tamatoa let the silence stretch just long enough.

"What, no witty comeback?" he taunted.  "It took the Ocean and a bunch of dead guys to fix your fuckup.  Turned her into a demigoddess."  He sniffed.  "A waste of good magic, if you ask me."

Then he sneered down at Maui again.

"But it wouldn't be the first time they wasted deification upon some useless piece of carrion."

Temper rising again, Maui's fists clenched.  The vein was pulsing again, too; he could feel it.

"That about cover it, Maui? "  Tamatoa somehow made his name sound worse than any of the insulting nicknames the crab was so fond of coming up with.

"You left out one part," Maui ground out through gritted teeth.

"Oh yeah?  What's that?"

"The part where I kick your crusty ass from here to Vanuatu.  Maybe you'd like to lose another leg?"

Tamatoa scoffed at the threat, flicking his antennae in a way meant to be disdainful.  But just like the crab knew how to push every last one of Maui's buttons, Maui likewise knew when Tamatoa was nervous.  And right now, the crab was shifting his massive weight warily, as if preparing to bolt if Maui attempted to make good on his threat.

Maui let out a heavy sigh, unclenching his fists and letting some of the tension sag out of his stiff frame.

He didn't want to get into another fight.  Once upon a time, he and Tamatoa had been friends.  They used to be able to talk without all this static.  Maui had once confided all his deepest secrets in the crab!

Secrets that the crab had turned against him, not so very long ago, Maui reminded himself.  The crab had just openly aired all Maui's dirty laundry right in front of Moana!

Maui's gaze fell on the cracked stump of Tamatoa's half-missing leg.

Then again, Maui had to admit to himself, he also might have given the crab a few reasons to be so belligerent.

Tamatoa, too observant for his own good, caught the pitying glance and his demeanor immediately went from nervous to blustering anger.  There was a fine line between pity and contempt, where Tamatoa was concerned.  And clearly the crab suspected the latter.

"Oh, so you haven't done enough damage already?" the crab snarled.  "Why don't you just get out of here!  I have better friends than you now!"

That declaration drew Maui up short.  An uneasy feeling settled on him, a prickling of a thought that he very much hoped wasn't true.

"Tamatoa," he began slowly, silently willing Tamatoa to read the concern in his voice and take him seriously.  "Who told you about Moana?"

Once again, the crab fell back upon silent smirking.  There was a slightly wavering edge to it now, though.

"Tell me it wasn't Nalo," Maui said, desperately hoping the crab would say anyone other than the vengeful storm god.  "Please."  It wasn't often he resorted to saying 'please,' either.

The nasty grin on the crab's face held his answer.

"Oh, now you're concerned about me?  I don't buy it.  You found your new friends," Tamatoa sneered, though there was no hiding the bitterness under his words.  "Well, I found some new friends, too."

"Tama--"

"Don't call me that!" the crab snapped back, furiously rejecting Maui's familiarity.

Maui took a deep breath.

"Tama toa ," he tried again, avoiding the old nickname from their friendlier days.  He needed the crab to focus right now.  "You can't trust Nalo.  He's out to destroy the humans and--"

"What do I care about humans? " the crab interrupted.  "Let him!  More treasure for me!"

For once, Maui ignored his inclination to jump to the defense of humans.  

"Damnit, Tamatoa listen to me!  He will kill you!"

For all the petty grievances and bad blood between them, dating back centuries , Maui didn't want to see Tamatoa end up dead.  There was genuine concern in his exasperated plea for the crab to see reason.

"He doesn't like monsters any more than humans," he tried to explain.  "And he doesn't have friends , he's just using you."

Tamatoa barked a laugh.  "Sounds like someone else I know!  Sounds more like you! "

Maui ran a frustrated hand over his face.  All those centuries of bitter animosity, stoked just as much by Maui himself as by Tamatoa, were coming back to bite him now--now, when he desperately needed the crab to just trust him for a minute like he used to.

But they had burned out their trust eons ago.  They both bore the evidence of that loss, Tamatoa on the shattered end of his leg and Maui on his back, with the one tattoo that liked to hide from the world--the one where he had fought his old best friend.

"Please, Tamatoa," he tried one more time.  "I know you're mad at me and I'm sorry you feel that way.  But, can't you put it behind you for half a minute and---"

"No!" the crab shot back with sudden fury, not letting him finish.  There was a seething edge to his voice, somehow even angrier than before, as if something Maui said had set him off further.  "I can't!  Now get lost! "

And with that, the crab lunged at him, both claws snapping.  There was real intent behind the attack, not merely a show of force.  Maui barely dodged in time, jumping clear with only inches to spare.  No sooner had he landed, than Tamatoa launched a second attack that Maui also had to rapidly evade.

Maui didn't know what to do.  His old friend just wasn't listening anymore and he absolutely did not want to get into a fight with him.

With a flash of his hook, Maui took to the air as a hawk.  He hovered out of the crab's considerable reach.

"Ok, ok!  I'm leaving!" he told his old friend.  There wasn't much more he could do at the moment but leave.  "Just… please think about what I said.  Don't trust Nalo."

All Maui got in reply was another snap of massive pincers, closing mere inches from his tail feathers.

Somewhere in all this, Maui had gone wrong.  He wasn't sure how it had all gone sideways or what exactly he had said to anger Tamatoa further, but there was nothing he could say now to fix it.  Resigned, he turned, narrowly avoiding another crushing snap, and made for the surface--and the new friends who waited for him there.